


waltzing out in blue and red

by MsTrick



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Angst, Archangel Gabriel, Blow Jobs, Catholic Imagery, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Incubus Jack, M/M, Masturbation, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Smut, Switching, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23833546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsTrick/pseuds/MsTrick
Summary: “I fell for you,” Gabriel growled. “The least you could do is offer me a drink before interrogating me.”It sounded simple like that. I fell. As though it had been a matter of stepping off a dock. As though the repercussions hadn’t rocked Heaven, Hell and the realms in between.The legendary Archangel Gabriel fell from grace thanks to a common incubus. Jack wasn’t even demon aristocracy.And the dumb part was that Jack hadn’t been trying to seduce Gabriel. Not in the beginning anyway.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 177
Kudos: 410





	1. [ i ]

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from Sylvia Plath's delicious **Mad Girl's Love Song** :
> 
> _I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;  
>  I lift my lids and all is born again.  
> (I think I made you up inside my head.)_
> 
> _The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,  
>  And arbitrary blackness gallops in:  
> I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._
> 
> _I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed  
>  And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.  
> (I think I made you up inside my head.)_
> 
> _God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:  
>  Exit seraphim and Satan's men:  
> I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._
> 
> _I fancied you'd return the way you said,  
>  But I grow old and I forget your name.  
> (I think I made you up inside my head.)_
> 
> _I should have loved a thunderbird instead;  
>  At least when spring comes they roar back again.  
> I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.  
> (I think I made you up inside my head.)_   
> 

**i.**

People asked about the halo hanging from his bed post. After they’d fucked, usually.

“Are you a fallen angel? Did you steal that from an angel? Did you murder an angel? Fuck one?”

Jack said yes. Their reactions ranged from impressed to disgusted. But one guy — a kid, really — hit the nail on the head so hard that Jack’s breath froze in his lungs.

“You loved him,” Genji said, reaching overhead to stroke along the curve of the heavenly metal. He was naked save for the hickeys and fluids Jack had decorated him with, his dark eyes shining and his green hair mussed from Jack’s fingers. “Did it hurt? I’ve heard it’s like sticking your dick in acid."

“You believe everything you hear?”

“Some things.” Genji grinned, green tail swishing. “I know who this belongs to. I would have gone after him too.”

Jack could have killed him. He should have expected this from a fellow incubus though. Hell, maybe he’d been secretly hoping for it. Hoping someone would poke the wound in his heart, keep it fresh and gory.

Alone in bed, his eyes trailed over the holy script etched into the halo, a language he couldn’t read. Jack knew it would be kinder to himself to cover it with something. Or shove it into the back of some closet. Or chuck it out entirely.

But it was in this bed that Gabriel had lost it. It seemed appropriate to hang it here, to allow it to remind him of the taste of Gabriel’s skin, the tense and release of his muscles, the heat emanating from his cheeks and forehead, a hand muffling the desperate sounds he made as Jack rocked into him, in awe at how Gabriel strained upwards, hips lifting to deepen the connection, calves hooking around Jack’s backside to keep him close.

Gabriel had been inelegant — wild-eyed and wet-lipped and keening. In the ether, invisible to the mortal plane, his broad white wings stretched and twitched and fluttered, luminous and gold-tipped, as Gabriel died and died and felt alive for the first time in his centuries of existence.

That was how Gabriel had phrased it anyway, lips skimming the shell of Jack’s ear as they shared a single pillow, glued together by their own sweat. Jack had wanted to gnaw him to the bone, had wanted to dote on him the way lovestruck humans doted on each other, had wanted to comb those feathers until they gleamed.

Jack hadn’t had to feed for months afterwards. The bioluminescent coronae that ringed his blue irises had shone bright as Christmas lights, the mark of a well-fed incubus. Uncorked, Gabriel’s lust drowned him, a warm sea he could have floated away on.

When Gabriel entered him for the first time, Jack howled and wept and nearly came on the spot. For all the humans and demons he’d taken to bed, _nothing_ he’d experienced compared to the scorch of an archangel between his legs, fucking into him like an animal, kissing him like he had a soul that could be saved.

So, yes, Jack kept the halo on his bedpost.

It dangled above his head in mockery of how it had once hovered above Gabriel’s, kept afloat on the purest of intentions. As Jack lay there looking up at it, the script began to flicker, as uneven as a broken lightbulb. Heart skittering, Jack waited for the knock on his front door and it came a few minutes later. He hesitated with his hand on the knob, pulse bouncing off the brass.

The Gabriel waiting for him on the other side was not the angel that trembled when Jack opened him up finger by finger. This was a jagged-edged recreation of that unsullied being. This was a creature trapped between worlds. And Jack was the one who trapped him there.

Despite the monumental transformation Gabriel had undergone, the eight years since their previous meeting hadn’t changed him much. He leaned against the door jamb decked out in black leather and steel. His eyes were the color of dark gold and sharp as flint, underscored by the scars peppering his cheeks. Belts hugged the curve of his hips, begging Jack to undo them, to slide them off one by one. The silver grey of his beard and undercut contrasted beautifully with his rich skin tone.

Jack let him in. A mistake. One he’d never not make.

“Nice apartment,” Gabriel chuckled. “Sex still sells, I see. Jesse tells me you’ve got quite the following on Instagram. Those photos with Genji were some of your most popular yet.”

“What do you want, Gabriel?”

“What do you think I want, sunshine?”

Jack’s tail snapped in annoyance at the nickname, even as his eyes started to dilate. Gabriel lowered his hood and strode through the living room like he owned it, sinking into the plush couch. Though Jack, like most incubi, preferred nudity, he had to admit there were advantages to clothing, the way it could shift between armor and giftwrap depending on the expression in Gabriel’s eyes.

“Where have you been?” Jack asked.

“I fell for you,” Gabriel growled. “The least you could do is offer me a drink before interrogating me.”

It sounded simple like that. _I fell._ As though it had been a matter of stepping off a dock. As though the repercussions hadn’t rocked Heaven, Hell and the realms in between.

The legendary Archangel Gabriel fell from grace thanks to a common incubus. Jack wasn’t even demon aristocracy.

And the dumb part was that Jack hadn’t been trying to seduce Gabriel. Not in the beginning anyway.

There had in truth been no reason for their paths to cross or for Gabriel to take any notice of Jack. Hellspawn though they were, incubi didn’t tend to get mixed up with murder or massacre and weren’t enough of a threat for the highest order of seraphim to concern themselves with.

But a few centuries ago, Gabriel grew fond of a young angel named Jesse, whose heart was solid gold but whose common sense was closer to thin aluminum. Headstrong and righteous, Jesse picked a fight with a gang of Lord Akande’s underlings who were sabotaging a delivery of medical supplies. It was eleven against one, odds that would have ripped the wings straight off Jesse’s back had Jack not intervened.

The two of them lurched into the woods near the Temple of Aphrodite Urania, careful to avoid the congregating humans. With a crack, Gabriel materialized in all his righteous fury, as brilliant and ferocious as a summer storm. And Jack made no move to bow or cower or sneak away, even when Gabriel pointedly dismissed him. The archangel barked reproaches at a battered, sullen Jesse and then this nobody of an incubus _interrupted_ him. Not only that, he interrupted Gabriel to argue on Jesse’s behalf.

Jack was candid and crass, not a blink of supplication or a word of sweet talk. Gabriel scowled, irritated by the audacity. But also fascinated by it. Most incubi slinked about, every pose and gesture sinuous and compliant. They liked to purr and please. They had little interest in justice or picking fights.

However, Jack was bruised and bloody from saving an angel intent on learning firsthand that no good deed went unpunished, and he was in _no_ mood to summon his charms. Not to mention he was _sick_ of the pompous holy law that had been spreading like a mold through Athens. (Heaven had been quite busy in those days. It had rapidly developed from just one of the intersecting realms into a self-proclaimed utopia. And it became a litigious place that didn’t look fondly on low-ranked angels who tried to take matters into their own hands.)

Jesse was impulsive, his feathers grayer at the tips than others’, but he hardly deserved to be punished for trying to do the right thing, Jack argued.

Naturally, Gabriel suspected deception. It was possible Jack knew the archangel had taken Jesse under his wing and figured saving the boy could entrap a heavenly authority into owing him a debt. At the very least, Gabriel expected the incubus to demand a reward. But after Jack had spoken his piece, he stalked away, tail whipping angrily.

It had been a long time since someone baffled Gabriel. He’d had millennia to pick apart and analyze what drove all manner of creatures to do the things they did. Humans were by far the most intriguing and unpredictable. Demons and angels usually had far more straightforward influences guiding their actions — or so it was claimed. Gabriel had witnessed angels act selfishly rather than for the greater good. And now here was a demon who’d acted against his own self-interest to help an enemy in need.

Gabriel found himself observing the incubus from on high. For research purposes. It was probably blasphemy to try and decipher why angels could be cruel and a demon could be kind — curiosity was the reason humans were booted from paradise after all — but Gabriel couldn’t help himself. The doctrine he’d lived by for thousands of years wasn’t adding up to the reality in front of him.

Jack was gentle with his prey. He charmed and persuaded but never forced or tricked, even when he was at his hungriest. He didn’t immediately vanish from his partner’s bed after he’d satisfied his appetite, often lingering to talk or cuddle. And to Gabriel’s astonishment, Jack pursued men while still in incubus form, which threw Heaven’s entire demonic catalogue into question. The holy libraries stated in myriad texts that sex demons appeared as incubi when pursuing women and shifted to their succubae forms to pursue men.

But for the entire century or so that Gabriel spent tracking Jack’s movements through Europe, Jack only ever appeared female when it directly benefitted his lifestyle. Like to avoid getting drafted into wars humans kept picking with their neighbors or to help a lover dodge some anti-homosexuality law.

Puzzled, Gabriel decided to speak to Jack. For research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments sustain my soul!
> 
> This idea just keeps nibbling and nibbling at me. I've got about eight chapters sketched out and I do intend to finish this thing, but I'm afraid I can't guarantee super frequent updates. I'll do my best though <3


	2. [ ii ]

**ii.**

At the end of the 15th century, Florence was blossoming with prosperity. Its red-roofed buildings were hubs of art, literature and music. With his vibrant blue eyes and sun-kissed skin, Jack slipped into the role of muse and model with ease. Wealth and luxury were excellent incubators for sexual experimentation. Sprawled naked over this or that settee with this or that piece of fruit as a prop, all Jack had to do to seduce an artist was flutter his eyelashes or arch his back or trail a hand up the inside of his thigh. An incubus’s thrall was gasoline thrown on sparks of curiosity, urging stray lustful thoughts into an uncontrollable blaze.

Cloaked in the ether, invisible to humans, Gabriel swept into an atelier with polished tile floors to find that two allegedly heterosexual painters had abandoned their canvases to study their subject more closely. At first glance, it seemed like Jack was their plaything, bouncing in one’s lap while the other stood in front of him, jerking off, his ruddy member aimed at Jack’s chest.

None of their roving hands or wet lips pierced the glamor cloaking Jack’s less human aspects – the devilish blue tail, matching horns, retractable claws and unnaturally bright eyes.

Gabriel had hoped the appearance of a Heavenly authority would startle the incubus out of his meal, but his appearance only seemed to amuse Jack. When he realized Gabriel wasn’t leaving, he lazily held up one finger.

Gabriel’s feathers flared in irritation. Jack was going to make him _wait._ Gabriel tasted rage but swallowed it back. He would not give the demon the satisfaction of a scene. Nor would he give him an audience.

Gabriel had witnessed sex before and was endlessly unimpressed at the messy, awkward, ungainly occupation that somehow felled virtue and common sense like wheat under a scythe. There was no dignity in the thrusting hips and jiggling bottoms. And the _smell_. That very particular stench of sweat and saliva and other bodily fluids.

Huffing the stink out of his nostrils, Gabriel turned to examine one of the paintings that Jack’s seduction had put on hiatus and curled his lip at the lurid depiction of an angel with Jack’s face. Crude blasphemy the incubus no doubt found very funny. Fortunately, not all artists could be Leonardo DaVinci. Gabriel took some solace in the clumsy brushwork, which would likely prevent the piece from gaining much fame.

Fuzzy warmth brushed the edges of his senses as Jack, charged up from the lust, thickened the thrall further. Gabriel’s gaze slid away from the canvas. The man fucking Jack whined like a dying animal and thrust up faster, delirious with desire, the slap of flesh on flesh ridiculous. The other man dropped to his knees, still pawing at himself, his mouth falling onto Jack’s pecs with relish.

Jack grinned and tipped his head back. Within seconds, semen painted his front and thighs in streaks only slightly more artful than the painting. Just watching made Gabriel want to shower. He wandered through a pair of heavy curtains out to the stone balcony and occupied himself with admiring the stars from this unfamiliar angle.

Jack followed some minutes later, hips swinging, eyes lustrous in the dark. He was still stark naked. Gabriel was gratified to see him acting far more in line with what was expected of an incubus.

“Archangel,” he greeted, wiping the corner of his lips with a languid swipe of his thumb. “Enjoy the show? I find it’s a fun challenge to bring two partners to climax at the same ti—”

“Why do you only pursue men?” Gabriel asked without preamble. “In incubus form, your biological imperative is to impregnate human females.”

“Uh.” Jack’s tail twitched in surprise. “Women just don’t make my dick hard.”

“So, why not shift into your succubus form? Surely you would be physically aroused by men in that state as well.”

“Doesn’t really feel like me.”

“It doesn’t…‘feel’ like you?” Gabriel echoed with a frown.

Jack shrugged. “Pursuing men in a male form feels more natural.”

“Why?”

“How should I know?” Jack laughed, lounging against the stone balustrade. “I guess God made me this way.”

“Don’t presume to speak for your creator, especially not when you’re claiming violating the natural law to be natural.”

“It’s not a conscious choice,” Jack said, still more bewildered than vexed by Gabriel’s sudden appearance and unexpected line of questioning. “Why do you care?”

“You’re an anomaly. It’s fascinating.”

Jack tilted his head, lips quirking into a coy smile. “You think I’m fascinating?"

“That’s not what I said.”

“Am I causing problems for your neatly divided worldview?” Jack asked, the insight sharp though his tone remained satin. “I’m not the only creature that won’t fit into your boxes.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Evidently, I need to investigate this further.”

“Let me know if you want help with the hands-on part of your…research.”

A scowl creased Gabriel’s face. It was annoying how quickly Jack switched from being gruff and antagonistic to being compliant and seductive. It left Gabriel feeling off-kilter. Everything he knew to be true insisted that the incubus’s authentic self was the sultry side, but his gut was having a hard time accepting that.

He spread his wings with a crisp movement. The currents of the ether began to catch on the underside of his feathers.

“Before you go, a small favor?” Jack asked.

Hah! Gabriel knew the demon had rescued Jesse for selfish reasons. Jack probably had some disreputable friend in angelic chains he wanted freed. Or maybe wanted undue protection for himself in the future. Or—

“Give me a lift home? I live on the other side of the city but the trip should be easy enough with your wingspan.”

Gabriel blinked at the innocuousness of the request. “Why?”

Jack glanced back through the curtains. “Marino’s a frivolous guy and will write this off as a drunken adventure, but Ambroise’ll try to kill me once the thrall wears off.”

“How do you know?”

Jack gave him a wry smile. “Because he threatened to kill me before I coaxed him into giving into the carnal thoughts he was having about me.”

“Seems like high-risk prey.”

“Call it another fun challenge,” Jack said, a hard edge to his voice.

Perturbed that his assumptions about Jack’s intentions had once again been misguided, Gabriel growled out, “Fine.”

Jack seemed surprised at Gabriel’s assent and Gabriel almost felt abashed that the demon had such low expectations of him. But that was the natural order of things, wasn’t it? Angels only bestowed their benevolence on humans because demons couldn’t be trusted not to use your own goodwill against you. Gabriel couldn’t see how the incubus could warp this though. He was literally putting his life in Gabriel’s hands.

Jack swiftly retrieved his things from inside, reemerging fully dressed. Gabriel encircled Jack’s chest from behind and leapt into the air with a great beat of his wings. Jack wasn’t light but the ether added an easy buoyancy to them both. Jack wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s and his tail coiled around Gabriel’s thigh. It occurred to Gabriel that body contact with an angel could be Jack’s hidden motive, a veiled attempt at seduction, but he dismissed the idea – it was survival instinct: hold on as tight as possible.

They glided high in the starlit night, a crescent moon lolling in the distance, the candle-lit city flickering prettily below. Jack’s heart pounded in glee and awe. The chill of the air was bracing and Gabriel’s hold on him was strong.

Jack grinned over his shoulder to yell into the wind. “This is awesome!”

Gabriel couldn’t help a bemused smile. Demons could be such children sometimes. Jack was still beaming when they set down on the street in front of the building where he rented a room.

“Ah, I will admit one thing about Heaven,” Jack said. “Out of all the realms, you guys have the best view.”

“That we do.”

“This usually has a dirtier meaning coming from me but: thanks for the ride.”

A huff of laughter escaped Gabriel.

Jack gave him a wink. “See you in my dreams, angel.”

He sauntered inside and it didn’t occur to Gabriel until long after to be annoyed that Jack hadn’t waited to be dismissed. And Gabriel was annoyed to realize that he wasn’t actually all that annoyed.

The next few hundred years didn’t go by quite as quickly as the ones before it. For whatever reason, Gabriel simply wasn’t finding his duties as absorbing as they used to be. As he surveyed the Treasury of Souls or carried out missions for the Creator, his mind wandered. Even in the blazing glory of Heaven’s Court, he found himself studying the other gold-laden seraphim with a skeptical gaze, noting when their actions deviated even slightly from their devout proclamations.

Jack remained in his thoughts. At first, Gabriel attributed it to the natural allure incubi and succubae emanated. But it wasn’t the muscular chest or trim waist or rich voice that kept Jack in the corridors of his mind. It wasn’t even the contradictory layers of his personality or his incisive insights. It was the...well, _goodness_ of him. An infallible trait in angels, but an unreliable one in humans and an absolutely startling one in demons.

And yet, not as rare as he’d once thought.

Delivering messages for the Almighty sent Gabriel to all corners of the globe and on his travels, he observed plenty of foul, sadistic creatures reveling in evil. But he also noticed a mammon who only tempted humans enough to feed her family; a belphegor who whispered ruinous schemes to corrupt businessmen but steered clear of wealthy philanthropists; a djinn who regretted the misfortune he accidentally caused. Expressions of compassion where none ought to be.

Gabriel collected questions and theories, and scoured the illuminated globe in Heaven’s library to locate Jack.

The incubus was living with a young marquis in a sinfully ostentatious château a few hours’ carriage ride from the Palace of Versailles. This whole time and place was sinfully ostentatious, Gabriel thought with disgust as he descended. He waited for the marquis to finish preening in front of the mirror and leave the overwrought bedchamber dressed in all his bows and frills.

Jack’s eyes flicked towards where Gabriel hovered in the space between light and shadow, and a smirk spread over his handsome face. Naked, he left the nest of satin bedcovers and glided towards his patron with the grace of cat. He dropped to his knees to nuzzle into the marquis’s velvet-covered crotch.

Smiling, the marquis put up a token protest before letting his consort undo the elaborate fastenings of his trousers. Jack swallowed him down in one smooth movement. With an incubus’s talents saturating his senses, the marquis wouldn’t last long.

Saliva trickled over Jack’s chin as the marquis’s cock thrust fast into his mouth. His hot and hazy gaze lingered on Gabriel.

 _He’s imagining it’s me._ Gabriel wondered if he was meant to be flattered. At most, he was mildly interested at the lust he felt creeping around the edges of his senses, Jack’s thrall searching for a crack to seep through. Gabriel resisted effortlessly, as he always had. Jack’s eyes trailed down the archangel’s throat to his bare arms, blatantly picturing what lay beneath the white leather chestpiece. And lower.

The marquis seized up. Pleased by the load being shot down his throat, Jack hummed and swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. All the while, his gradually brightening eyes remained locked on Gabriel’s invisible presence.

The smitten marquis murmured promises of sapphires and left his concubine’s room on unsteady legs.

Gabriel stepped out of the shadows. He appeared human, but if Jack unfocused his vision, let the ether shimmer into his gaze, he could see the broad white wings and the lazily rotating halo. Gold polished brighter than any jewel in Versailles.

With the marquis gone, Jack shrugged off his glamor and melted back into the plush bed, sated and content and indifferent to Gabriel’s authority.

“I’ll start charging you tickets soon,” Jack chuckled.

“It’s hardly my fault you spend the majority of your time chasing sex.”

“That’s what survival’s about. You don’t accuse every human pursuing three meals a day of gluttony. Or do you?”

“Of course not. Though sometimes I wonder if your sin is more greed than lust,” Gabriel said, eyeballing the expensive furnishings.

Jack shrugged. “A certain level of wealth buffers men from society’s judgment. They worry less. They’re willing to play more. The lower classes don’t have nearly so much freedom.”

“A pleasant excuse to be fucked on silk sheets instead of in a haystack.”

“Nothing wrong with a win-win scenario,” Jack said with a satisfying stretch.

The morning light spilling in from the large windows emphasized his sleek muscles. He was undeniably alluring. Much the way a jaguar was undeniably threatening, Gabriel thought. Biology dictated so much of our existence. For instance, angels didn’t need to hunt down nourishment; the benevolent light of God sustained them.

“You mean the sun,” Jack snorted. “You’re basically flying plants.”

“A creature like you wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m a demon, not mentally deficient,” Jack shot back, his sultry demeanor evaporating. “And the lilītu call it photosynthesis overlaid with philosophy.”

“The lilītu are blasphemers.”

“You mean they’re old enough to remember what Heaven was like before it decided that, because it happened to be in the sky, it was pure and the rest of the realms weren’t.”

“Watch it,” Gabriel warned. “I’m well within my rights to vanquish you.”

Threats urged most incubi and succubae to pout, to retreat into coquettish fawning. But Jack’s only response was to antagonistically swish his tail back and forth over the silk bedspread.

“From what I’ve heard, you vanquish demons and even humans for far smaller slights.”

“The Rule of Heaven is strict but just,” Gabriel said, reciting the code he lived by.

“Mm.”

Jack dismounted the gaudy bed and ambled towards where Gabriel stood rigid with vexation. The incubus trailed fingertips up the leather chestpiece, looked him dead in the eye, and in a voice of honey and gravel, asked:

“You sure there isn’t just a little piece of you that enjoys it?”

Gabriel punched him in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hang out with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mstrick16)! ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ


	3. [ iii ]

**iii.**

In hindsight, Gabriel could admit that that probably wasn’t the best way to prove that he didn’t enjoy violence and vengeance.

Disconcerted and remorseful, he approached the most senior of all angels for counsel. Metatron spoke to the Court of Heaven on behalf of the Almighty, lead them in prayer, distributed assignments. Unlike Gabriel kitted out in white leather geared for travel and combat, Metatron was dressed in voluminous silvery robes.

He laughed in his booming voice when Gabriel confessed his recent doubts.

“You’re worried about taking pleasure in carrying out our Lord’s will?” Metatron asked, teeth bared in amusement.

“I worry I’m enjoying it too much.”

“Humility is a virtue and pride a vice, sure, but joy is nothing to feel guilty about. Especially when it’s to do with spilling the blood of Hellspawn.”

“There must be some demons who deserve a chance at redemption and absolution.”

Metatron sighed and clapped a shovel-like hand onto Gabriel’s shoulder. “Your heart is good, Gabriel, but you need to understand where to draw the line. Humans? They always deserve that chance. But by their very nature, demons don’t. That’s all there is to it. Try not to let your analytical mind get in the way of that good heart, eh?”

Gabriel nodded, though the tension in his back and neck didn’t ease. The hush of the ethereal library also did little to soothe him. There was a low murmur, the sound of the books updating themselves. He thumbed through the compendium of demons, as he’d done so often since meeting Jack. To his consternation, the entry on incubi/succubae hadn’t changed since the last time he read it. These elegant tomes were meant to contain nothing but the truth, and yet the description continued to insist that sex demons operated on a hetero-binary system.

Gabriel shut the compendium with a scowl and, deep in thought, approached the large, luminous globe at the library’s heart. It spun gently, tempting him to search for his atypical blond incubus. But he turned away. This fascination with Jack was a mistake and a waste of time. So what if Heavenly doctrine couldn’t explain the challenging gleam in those blue eyes? Or the grin that crossed that handsome face when a man came inside him? Or his righteous defense of Jesse’s good intentions?

It was time Gabriel stopped looking for some deeper meaning in this incongruity. One glitch didn’t mean the whole system was corrupted.

He resisted the urge to seek out Jack for 200 years or so, but every time he emerged from combat bloody and panting, he heard Jack’s sly taunt. Because of course Gabriel enjoyed it. And no matter what Metatron said, he knew the joy wasn’t pure. Knew the thrill of defeating enemies came from the singing in his muscles and the pride of victory, not from the satisfaction of carrying out the Creator’s will. Sometimes he stroked the thrumming metal of his halo, just to check it was still stable above his head.

Gabriel found himself avoiding the company of most seraphim, instead devoted more and more time making sure Jesse didn’t fall from grace for doing the wrong thing for the right reason or vice versa. Of course, Jesse and all his ambiguity inevitably summoned thoughts of Jack. Both of them were such vibrant shades of grey in realms that much preferred black and white.

“Boss, if you’re still tied up in knots, maybe say sorry for deckin’ him and buy the guy a drink?” Jesse suggested one day. “Tie up loose ends, clear your conscience, that sorta thing.”

“There’s no reason my conscience shouldn’t be clear already,” Gabriel said.

“Suit yourself.” Jesse shrugged. “But you ain’t actin’ like you believe that.”

That little prod was enough to break Gabriel’s resolution, which didn’t say much for its strength. It was the early 1920s when he laid his fingertips on the library’s luminous globe, just after the war burned itself out. He’d expected to find Jack tangled in a pile of limbs and dripping with semen, as usual, but once again his incubus confounded him.

In a cozy apartment in one of London’s less fashionable quarters, Jack was laughing over breakfast with a handsome brunet who gave Jack a sound kiss goodbye before heading out to work. Gabriel was instantly aware that this was different from Jack’s arrangement with the marquis and previous other patrons. For one, Jack didn’t bother concealing his demonic traits.

A few years of observation painted a picture that made perfect sense on the surface but shouldn’t have been possible. Demons were not supposed to be able to love, but there was no other way to describe the way Jack and Vincent treated each other – like equals, like friends, like something deeper than friends. Vincent was half incubus, though appeared completely human. The only giveaway was the gold glow of his eyes during the sex they had regularly and enthusiastically.

Every time a twang of guilt sounded in Gabriel for spying, he reminded himself it was for research. It wasn’t that he actively sought to watch them have sex, but he couldn’t help noticing that Jack’s intimacy with Vincent was more than mere nourishment. Though, of course, it did feed Jack well.

For the first time, Gabriel witnessed without the ether-blur of a glamor how lust imbued the incubus with life. A crisp bioluminescent ring appeared around each of Jack’s irises, a corona that seeped inwards, filling in the circle more and more as Vincent neared climax, until all the blue in Jack’s eyes gleamed bright. It was…beautiful. Like seawater illuminated by the sun.

Gabriel watched their love story play out in the glitter of jazz clubs and cocktail bars, stolen kisses between drags of a cigarette, squabbles about chores and groceries. He watched as those squabbles deepened into rifts, especially as the glitz tarnished and another nasty war loomed. Vincent was adamant about moving to North America to escape while they could, but Jack wanted to stay and fight, wanted to defend the freedoms England and France stood for.

Both Vincent and Gabriel were mystified as to why an incubus would choose to take a stand in a human conflict, especially when Gabriel had seen Jack slip away from myriad battles in the past. Jack himself struggled to articulate his reasons beyond: “This conflict just feels different, bigger somehow, like something more important than just land is at stake.”

Jack lingered on the pier for hours after Vincent’s ocean liner cast off. Glamor in place, Gabriel appeared by his side as the first stars fought their way through the smog.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Jack asked, tired.

“You okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m spectacular,” Jack sneered. “Demons don’t have hearts and incubi can’t fall in love with men, so logically, I haven’t got a thing to be sad about, right? Is that what you’re going to tell me?”

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said quietly.

The apology caught them both off-guard. Angels were meant to revel in demons’ misfortune, but for the entire fifteen or so years he’d been observing Jack and Vincent’s relationship, Gabriel had been feeling what he could only describe as incorrect emotions. He’d been glad to see his incubus in a happy relationship when he should have been scoffing at a demon’s mimicry of love. Instead of being satisfied to write off Jack as a true and total abnormality, Gabriel grew more and more suspicious of Heaven’s declarations and records.

And now, when he should be gloating that all was right in the world because of course a demon would never be able to make a loving relationship work, all he wanted was to make Jack smile.

“You want to go for a ride?” Gabriel asked.

Jack peeled his gaze from the horizon to raise an eyebrow at Gabriel. “Yes.”

“Not that kind of ride.”

Jack snorted. “I assumed you meant a flight. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, the corners of his mouth quirking up.

“Why not,” Jack said. “Plummeting to my death would only be the second worst thing to happen to me today.”

“Oh, shut up,” Gabriel growled, swooping in to wrap his arms around Jack’s chest from behind. “If I wanted to vanquish you, I’d do it with my bare hands.”

“Because you enjoy it?” Jack taunted, tail hooking around Gabriel’s upper leg again.

Gabriel chuckled into Jack’s ear. “Yes.”

They slipped into the ether and a great beat of Gabriel’s wings blasted them upwards.

As strings of fluorescents flickered to life in London’s streets, Gabriel soared above the exhaust of cars and autobuses, the crowds of people, the noise and crush of it all. Jack’s heartbeat drummed through them both. Gabriel arced high and when his back was to the earth, he folded his wings and let gravity pull them into a somersault that drew a loud whoop from Jack.

By the time Gabriel set them down on top of Tower Bridge, the pallor of heartbreak had somewhat lifted from Jack’s cheeks. They sat side by side, without glamors, looking out over the black river sparkling with city lights. Breezes tousled Jack’s hair and Gabriel’s white feathers.

“You regret letting him go?” Gabriel asked.

He felt another incorrect emotion, a small twinge of happiness, when Jack shook his head.

“I’ll miss him though,” Jack said. “Vincent was my first real friend. Someone who saw me exactly as I was. Someone who wanted to sleep with _me_ and not with whatever version of me the thrall puts in someone’s head. I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to want that.”

Gabriel thought of the misalignment he’d been feeling in the Court of Heaven, how others’ perception of his holiness lately lay over him like an awkward cloak.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Would I?” Jack asked in a flat voice. His tail was limp, none of the usual swishing antagonism. “So, you might have a streak of bloodlust in those gold veins of yours and, worse, a sense of curiosity. You’ve still convinced a large chunk of this realm to worship you and stamp out creatures like me. It's not like you're an outcast.”

“I’m guessing you’re too nice to reside in Hell?”

“You said it yourself, I’m an anomaly.”

“Guy like you has to have other friends.”

Jack shrugged. The short, sad movement sent a pang through Gabriel. Yet another incorrect emotion.

“Got booted from the Guild of Incubi and Succubae for being homosexual. Most demons are only out for themselves and don’t make for trustworthy companions. Some humans might be open to getting to know the real me, but sex always seems to complicate things for them. A lot of guilt and fear. You angels have only made that worse over the past few centuries.”

More grey territory for Gabriel to wade through. It was good that humans didn’t waste their lives pursuing carnal pleasure, but the goal hadn’t been to make humans ashamed of the act of procreation, was it? Surely, the Creator didn’t intend for them to loathe themselves. But as Gabriel was learning, what Heaven said and what Heaven did were two separate things. For the holy library books to omit a footnote about demons’ possible sexual preferences was one thing, but to proclaim outright that demons couldn’t love when Gabriel could sense the throbbing ache of Jack’s broken heart… That unsettled Gabriel in a way he couldn’t possibly deny.

The way the story went, Eve bit into an apple and plunged humanity into this torrid realm. Funny how many of the seraphim’s fables were veiled warnings not to ask questions. He heard the siren song of Jack’s insights, his grounded perspective, his knowledge of the world. However, there was no blaming the allure on Jack. The demon wasn’t tempting Gabriel, wasn’t provoking him, wasn’t even looking at him. If Gabriel really wanted to discover why Heaven’s narratives differed so much from reality, it was up to Gabriel to ask.

He did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold the result of 8 years of Catholic private school


	4. [ iv ]

**iv.**

War was no place for an incubus. And yet, there Jack was, spattered with mud, attached to a medic unit that slept in the back of their battered ambulances, or shook underneath them until the drone of planes passed.

Humans were so clever. Devising ways to kill each other from the sky. It was laughable that Heaven tried to blame all that cruel ingenuity on demons. The Kingdom of Hell, for all its many sins, had never waged open war. Demons nibbled on people, fed their vices and lured them to nasty ends, but only on an individual basis. Prodding a man to violence might make a serial killer of him, raze a dozen souls over the course of years, but a well-placed bomb dropped by a single human pilot could flatten a neighborhood.

More than once, Jack wondered what the fuck he was doing bandaging shredded humans in the bloodied French countryside. He was cold all the time. And so hungry. Fear trampled men’s lust. If it wasn’t fear, it was the nausea or the despair. Most days, there wasn’t even a wisp of desire on the breeze.

In desperation, several weeks ago, he took on his female form and enticed an older officer into an abandoned home under the pretense of being a buxom French civilian. It was a quick, unsatisfactory rutting. Hardly a meal.

“You’re starving,” Baptiste noticed one night.

Curled up on one of the gurneys, Jack cracked his eyes open and squinted at his brother-in-arms through the dim interior of the ambulance.

“We’re all hungr—”

“I’ve been a doctor a long time, zanmi. You think I don’t know what you are and what you eat?”

Jack blinked in surprise. Baptiste was human through and through, but he was sharp. Sharp could be dangerous, and Jack was too depleted to produce much of a thrall. It was already taking all his energy to maintain the glamor.

“And you’re okay with that?” Jack asked warily.

Baptiste shrugged. “You’re fighting on my side in a war, aren’t you? Plenty men not brave enough to do the same. Nothing else counts for shit these days. You interested or not?”

“Not used to people offering.”

“You’re no good to anyone dead.” Baptiste undid his fly and Jack’s mouth watered at the musky smell of him. “‘Sides, I get the feeling you’d be good at what you do.”

Jack laughed. “It alright with you if I stay male?”

“Zanmi, I’m counting on it.”

Grateful, Jack sank to his knees and moaned greedily as he took Baptiste in his mouth. Jack pretended it was Gabriel. It was easy. Rippling muscles under dark skin. His own dick throbbed as he wondered if the archangel was watching. Sometimes, Jack thought he could sense him, a light tingle in the tips of his horns. He palmed himself through his fatigues and rode the high of Baptiste’s pleasure to a much-needed full stomach.

On the battlefield months later, men screaming and bleeding around them, the back of Jack’s neck went cold. He heard only his breath. He looked down and saw his claws had protracted on instinct. Threat. Jack flung himself into the ether as shells blasted the earth where he’d stood. His ears rang, even in non-space.

When his senses swam back into place and he’d re-anchored in the tangible world, dread hit Jack’s gut with all the force of the bomb he’d avoided.

Baptiste was sprawled on the ground, one hand a mutilated stump, the other holding his own organs in.

“No, no, no!” Jack chanted, dropping to the medic’s side and knowing it was too late.

Baptiste was shattered on all levels, but he registered the glowing white wings.

“Anj,” he whispered.

Jack looked up and, for a second, understood the allure of praying to Heaven. When it was Gabriel descending to meet you, powerful and pure, gold and bronze and illuminated, it was natural to want to fall at his feet. Or at least, it was aesthetically pleasing to do so.

“Akanji, teknikman,” Gabriel replied. “Ou ka repoze kounye a.”

Baptiste managed a smile.

“Save him,” Jack demanded. “He doesn’t deserve to die.”

“As opposed to everyone else in this global clusterfuck?”

“Do _something_. Isn’t it your job to look out for virtuous humans?”

Gabriel knelt down and hovered a hand over Baptiste’s chest, withdrawing a glowing sphere with ease. Jack stared at it in awe. A human soul. A handful of starlight gleaming with the aching potential of free will. If that was what angels saw in humans all the time, it was no wonder Heaven cherished them.

The soul in hand, Gabriel stood, and Baptiste’s breath vanished from his body.

“What the fuck did you do?” Jack yelled as his friend went limp.

“Calm your tits,” Gabriel snapped, carefully slotting the squirming ball of light into a gilded box and returning it to his shoulder bag. “If I take this to the Treasury of Souls, he can be reborn as an angel. He’ll have plenty of time to help people then.”

Jack supposed that was better than Baptiste simply ceasing to exist, even if the idea of seraphim recruiting humans into their ranks was an unpleasant one. However, his thoughts and feelings were too complicated to unpack right now. He was so tired. He was so hungry. Vincent was gone. His only friend was dead. So many others were dead. And the war rolled on and on.

Gabriel picked him up in a bridal carry. Despite the cool strength of Gabriel’s arms, this was the last place Jack should feel safe. But Jack tucked his face into the angel’s neck, his glamor flickered out like a lightbulb, and sleep swallowed him down.

When he blinked awake, the sun was setting. Fingers of rose gold light clawed through tree branches pocked with spring green buds. They sat in the grass, in some wooded grove where the fighting wasn’t audible. Enormous white wings bracketed Jack’s vision, to his surprise. He was still pressed against Gabriel, his head on an armored shoulder, an arm around his back keeping him stable.

Jack wet his lips and slowly stroked over the chestpiece, viscerally aware of Gabriel’s powerful thighs and hard muscles. Fuck, all he wanted was the archangel to pin him down and ruin him. He never would though, Jack thought with a sigh. Gabriel’s halo spun soundlessly above his head, as polished and steady as ever, a silent beacon of purity.

“Why do you keep showing up?” Jack asked, shoving away the yearning in his gut.

Gabriel looked at him for a long moment, those dark gold eyes inscrutable.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Can’t seem to stop thinking about you.”

“You’re an idiot.” Jack shook his head. “I’m biologically designed to attract interest. You’ve just got some secondhand thrall stuck in your system.”

Gabriel chuckled, the rich sound rippling right through Jack.

“Your thrall isn’t _that_ hard to counter. I’m hardly stumbling after you with my dick out. You’re interesting for reasons beyond your body.”

“Because I’m a puzzle you can’t solve?”

Jack attempted to stand. Gabriel scowled as dizziness skewered Jack’s balance and dragged him back down. The incubus’s last tryst had been two weeks ago and Baptiste, war-weathered medic though he was, had only been able summon so much lust on a battlefield.

“There’s a young man in a village just east of here. Likes to roll in the hay with boys in uniform,” Gabriel said.

Jack’s head snapped up in shock.

“He’s deaf, which is why he isn’t in a trench somewhere,” Gabriel explained awkwardly.

“You…found me a meal?” Jack said, incredulous. “You, one of the highest ranked seraphim in God’s court, are enabling a demon to tempt a human into homosexual intercourse.”

Though Gabriel’s shrug was nonchalant, the down of his wings ruffled in embarrassment.

“Why?” Jack pressed.

“You’re one of the only creatures I know who’s worth having a conversation with.”

“I’ve answered all your questions – there can’t be much else you want to know. I don’t have a soul you can save. I can’t be neatly tucked into a gold box and renovated in white feathers.”

“I want you to quit this dumb business of playing soldier. I don’t even understand why you’d get involved in the first place.”

“You think you’re the only one that likes a fight?” Jack tossed off.

“This isn’t a fight. It’s slaughter without honor. And that’s not the reason you’re here.”

“Well, I won’t tell Heaven you have a pet demon you give snacks to if you don’t tell Hell I’ve got a conscience. I’d rather that the Nazis _not_ spread their genocidal pseudo-scientific theories on racial hierarchy.”

“And I’d rather not see you dead. You’re just one soldier.”

Jack slung a leg over Gabriel’s lap and settled into it, pinning the angel with the kind of glare Gabriel had been expecting from his Heavenly superiors for centuries.

“But _you’re_ not,” Jack said in a voice that was both challenging and sultry. “Tip the war. Put some of that vengeance to use. Help the right side win.”

“Angels aren’t supposed to interfere with—”

“Angels aren’t supposed to feed demons either. Or are you going to tell me Heaven’s a-okay with the systematic extermination of Jews, homosexuals and whoever else doesn’t look good on a poster?”

“Of course, we’re not okay with it,” Gabriel snapped. “But it’s just one of how many petty human conflicts?”

Jack’s eyes flashed like blue fire and his thrall unfurled from his skin. Gabriel felt it tugging at his senses, needy and wanting, like the smell of something fresh and delicious on his tongue.

“You’re…trying to _seduce_ me into helping?” Gabriel asked, astonished.

Jack flushed angrily. “You’d rather I seduce you for something else?”

Gabriel opened his mouth but no response emerged. Both _yes_ and _no_ seemed like wrong answers somehow. While his thoughts chased each other back and forth, his hands settled on the demon’s sides. It would be easy to pretend Jack’s lush pheromones were the reason, but Gabriel’s defenses remained firm as ever. It was more that it seemed polite? If there was such a thing as a polite response when an incubus asked an angel to fight for human decency. Jack’s tapered waist slotted nicely into his hands, solid and real.

“I was mulling over our last discussion on good and evil,” Gabriel said at length. His thumbs absently rubbed back and forth. “And I think I parsed that they’re really just grand ways of saying _selfless_ and _selfish_.”

“Oh?” Jack was very distracted by the splay of Gabriel’s thick fingers across his lower back.

They’d feel good oiled up and pushing inside him, stretching him open. Three wedged in with slick force. Then— if the size of those fingers was anything to go by, Gabriel would be _big_. He could be sitting in Gabriel’s lap like this, grinding down, impaling himself full, his balls slapping into Gabriel with every downward thrust.

“Jack?”

Jack swallowed. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“I said that calling things _evil_ or _good_ is a way of erasing complications. Heaven encourages selflessness and we call it virtue. Hell encourages selfishness and we damn it as sin. But it’s really not that simple, is it? Being selfish can be harmful to others but isn’t always. Being selfless can sometimes lead to more harm than help.”

“Right,” Jack agreed, breath a bit short. “So, would you helping France in this war be selfish or selfless?”

“Neither.” Gabriel’s hold shifted to tug Jack closer. “It’d be a favor for a friend.”

After a bewildered moment, Jack sagged into the tender hug. A strange warmth bubbled inside him, a sensation he didn’t quite know the name of. It wasn’t just relief or comfort. He’d felt something similar with Vincent and called it love. This was different though, like lust but…broader, deeper, more colorful somehow. Like the sparkling aftershocks of an orgasm, except it didn’t fade.

And years later, when the war ended in Europe in the autumn of 1945, it still hadn’t faded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Creole translation:
> 
> "Zanmi" = "Friend"  
> “Anj” = "Angel"  
> “Akanji, teknikman" = "Archangel, technically"  
> “Ou ka repoze kounye a” = "You can rest now"


	5. [ v ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's got two thumbs and is writing fanfiction because the real world is overwhelmingly distressing right now?

**v.**

All at once, another millennium was nearly over. Less than twenty years until 2000 AD. And the lines the seraphim had drawn through Earth’s societies were blurring more than ever. Heaven was losing its hold on humanity in crumbs and chunks, and the higher ups were not happy. The once elated and exalted atmosphere of the Court soured into tension.

The archangel Michael’s wings snapped like white blades as he stalked through the chorus of angels. Baptiste stepped neatly out of his way and traded a look with Gabriel. The former medic had grown into an effective and benevolent angel, and it hadn’t taken his analytical mind long to glom onto the less-than-saintly elements lingering like a bad smell in the white marble halls. Jack had been right to describe him as sharp.

Michael paced. Their fellow archangel Raphael’s calls for patience and compassion fell on deaf ears.

“If we’d given Satan and his armies patience and compassion, where would we be?” Michael barked.

“Yes, yes, we all remember how you led our forces and are still very proud of you,” Gabriel groused. “But battling waning interest isn’t quite the same as chucking angels out of Heaven on a whim.”

“A whim?! Lucifer wasn’t exactly— Oh.” Michael huffed. “You can’t still be blue about Jesse, can you? He was caught sinning. You should be celebrating his exile.”

Gabriel scowled, fury still fresh beneath his skin. Even banished to Earth, Jesse was still endeavoring to help those in need, but what did his heart of gold matter to the Heavenly authorities? Jesse was cavalier and rough around the edges, feathers tipped in grey, and he liked his booze. They’d been looking for any excuse to boot him. With tension so high in the Court, a flask of whiskey was all it took.

“He didn’t deserve to have his wings scorched off.”

Michael’s hand cut the air. “Angels. Don’t. Sin.”

“And Reinhardt?” Gabriel countered heatedly. “What was his sin?”

“Leniency. Being lenient with sinners and demons is as good as endorsing them. Something _you_ should be thinking about.”

“And maybe _you_ should be thinking about updating your worldview. What do you think all my research down there is for? Humanity _changes_. It’s one of their only constants. We need to change too if we’re to have any hope of staying relevant.”

Metatron’s snarling voice boomed through the gilded hall:

“That is not the answer. We’re not a _fad_. We replaced the pagan religions because we’re real, not some halfbreed demons hoodwinking humans into thinking we’re gods. If they’re moving beyond us, they’re _wrong_.”

His face grew ugly when crimped with stress. Taciturn Raphael caught Gabriel’s eyes, warning him off sparking another altercation. _There’s no point_ , his friend seemed to say. Metatron and the others would insist on keeping the old ways while the world inched on to a new phase, as it always had. It frustrated Gabriel that his comrades couldn’t see that they were only paving the way for their own irrelevance.

Baptiste watched him head towards the library with a knowing expression on his face.

Gabriel actually had to search for Jack this time, sweeping the globe from top to bottom, and found him in a glitzy city stuffed with lights and wealth.

Broad-shouldered and blue-eyed, the blond incubus did not look like he belonged in Tokyo.

“Well, that’s the point,” Jack said. “I’m a rare commodity here.”

“Sex isn’t a commodity.”

“It was the first commodity humanity ever invented,” Jack said with a roll of his eyes.

Gabriel scanned the luxe apartment, perched high in a glass tower. In the blink of an eye, Tokyo had gone from flattened ashes to thriving technological hub. Gabriel could hardly keep up with how fast humans changed sometimes. While Heaven wrung its hands over it, demons adapted.

Jack was a regular caller on a few Japanese chairmen with deep pockets. He spent most of his days in an expensive suit and tie, so his patrons could camouflage him as a business acquaintance. Snug at home, however, Jack wore neither clothes nor a glamor. The tasteful lighting added a gold luster to his skin and turned his blue horns and tail to cobalt.

Jack sauntered into the archangel’s personal space and Gabriel raised an eyebrow at the rather clichéd incubus behavior.

“I have a question this time,” Jack said, eyes drifting upwards. “Why does Jesse still have his halo? Would have thought your little merit badge would be the first thing they strip you of.”

Gabriel gently took hold of Jack’s fingers as they reached for the silent ring of metal. A thumb slid over Jack’s palm and lingered there.

“A halo only expires when we lose faith in our own purity. Fallen angels are sometimes deluded enough to retain their halos for a few days or weeks after Heaven takes their wings. But they all tarnish and drop eventually.”

“And then what do they do with them?” Jack asked, his voice a rumble Gabriel could listen to forever.

With that out-of-place thought, Gabriel relinquished Jack’s hand and moved away.

“How should I know?” He bit out.

Jack pouted. And Gabriel again noticed how stereotypically incubus the gesture was. Hips swinging, Jack meandered to his compact kitchen and bent over to lean into his tiny fridge.

“You want a beer or some whisk—?”

“What is _that?_ ” Gabriel blurted out.

Jack peered over his shoulder and, noticing the angle of Gabriel’s gaze, closed the fridge with a smirk.

“Fun,” he responded. His tail flicked out to cheekily brush Gabriel’s thigh as he walked past him.

Jack knelt on the couch and tipped his ass into the air, lifting his tail to give Gabriel a full view of the plug lodged snug in his hole.

Gabriel’s throat went oddly dry. He drew closer, riveted. Wedged between the muscular ass cheeks, just below where Jack’s spine morphed into the blue tail, the small disc of dense pink glass seemed like a piece of fruit waiting to be picked.

“What’s the point of indulging in sexual pleasure by yourself?” Gabriel asked. “You can’t feed off your own lust.”

“Just feels good is all.” Jack sank his claws into the back of the couch and stretched. The glass plug caught the light. “Angels aren’t very good at doing things for themselves, are they?”

Gabriel didn’t know how to respond to that. He’d observed Jack having anal sex on many occasions and the demon appeared to enjoy it immensely, but that it felt good enough to perform on himself was unexpected.

“You can touch it if you like,” Jack said with the same nonchalance as he offered Gabriel a drink. A smile played over his lips. “For your research.”

Jack’s tail looped around his own pale thigh to give Gabriel access. The angel hesitated. Gabriel knew his curiosity was leading him into serious grey territory here. With careful steps though. Just the soles of his feet getting dirty, easily hidden, the rest of him pristine. The absence of thrall settled his trepidation. Jack enjoyed pushing Gabriel out of his comfort zone but if he truly intended to lure Gabriel into sin, his pheromones would be saturating the air.

After a few seconds, Gabriel grazed two fingers over the smooth glass toy and was fascinated to find how warm it was. Jack’s body gave off so much more heat than his. Gabriel’s fingertips circled the rim of the flare. Goosebumps raced up Jack’s spine.

Gabriel experimentally pushed the pad of his thumb into the glass and Jack exhaled with force. He shivered and pressed back into Gabriel’s hand, like an affectionate cat. Captivated, Gabriel gave the plug another slow push and Jack made a tight noise. His head dropped forward and his hips twitched.

It slowly dawned on Jack that his hunger was losing its edge. He could feel his eyeballs warming. But that meant Gabriel was…

No, no, no, this wasn’t supposed to be working. Jack clamped down on the rising panic. Taking a gamble, he unleashed his thrall in an unmistakable wave. To his relief, the potent pheromones triggered Gabriel’s natural defenses and the archangel backed away.

“What are you doing?”

Jack stood and slinked back into Gabriel’s space.

“Taking advantage of a free meal."

"What?"

"You are aware of what an incubus is, right? Honestly, I thought it would take longer, but look at you. The Archangel Gabriel all hot and bothered because of a pink anal plug.”

He hooked one clawed hand into the top of Gabriel’s jeans and used the other to crudely drag Gabriel’s hand back to the toy. Gabriel jerked out of Jack’s hold. Jack chuckled meanly, letting his thrall permeate the air. Gabriel felt the heat of it on his senses.

“Stop it,” Gabriel hissed.

“Worried you might do something stupid?” Jack taunted, bile in the back of his throat. “How often have you watched me suck cock and wondered what it felt like? I bet you’ve imagined it. You like dominating demons in battle. Don’t you want to dominate one on his own turf? I’m very good at fucking, Gabriel. You’d have to work hard to put me in my place.”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Why is a sex demon trying to seduce you? C’mon, sweetheart, you’re not _that_ stupid.”

“You’re lying,” Gabriel whispered, more plea than accusation. “There’s some reason you’re doing this.”

“Yeah.” Jack fluttered his eyelashes. “I’m bored. You were fun to toy with for a few centuries but at this point, I’d rather you either fuck me or fuck off. Because this game is getting annoying.”

“You’re saying you’ve been lying to me all this time?”

Jack silenced the denial screaming in his chest, ignored the cracks in his heart, and forced out a laugh. “Come on. Did you really think you’d found the one respectable sex demon in existence? Give me a break.”

Gabriel studied him for a long moment, eyes hard and jaw tight. Jack felt that searching gaze chipping at his smiling façade.

And then Gabriel was gone.


	6. [ vi ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahahahaha all I can write is fanfiction FML I am the bestower of poetic smut and traditional publishing can go fuck itself

**vi.**

Gabriel had torn through half of Tokyo’s oni population before the fog of humiliation and fury began to subside. He wasn’t even sure what year it was. 2005, according to a newspaper. He returned to the Court of Heaven and confessed at Metatron’s feet. Raphael paced in concern as Gabriel recounted how his curiosity morphed into sinful fascination that bordered on lust, how the incubus convinced him to view the world from his perspective, how he doubted himself. He heard the Archangel Michael snickering behind him.

No one noticed Baptiste slip out through the gold doors.

“How could you be so _stupid_?” Michael sneered.

Metatron held up a hand to silence him. He considered Gabriel for a few moments, the whispers of the Creator in his ear.

“We are all tested at times,” he said at last. “It’s clear that this incubus was sent to be your trial of faith: the creature designed to torment you the most. The path forward is equally clear. Defeat your demon. Since this appears to be quite a struggle for you, I will make things easier and bless you with some external motivation. You will not be permitted to return here until you extinguish this incubus.”

Gabriel bowed low in thanks, the gilt tips of his wings kissing the floor.

“I won’t let you down.”

Righteousness hardened Gabriel’s heart, as though he’d taken the cold white marble of their home and built a chamber for his feelings. Doubts and wishful suspicions still plucked at him, but he couldn’t afford to listen. The blacksmith forged him a pair of golden shotguns to replace the twin swords he’d wielded for millennia. Blended with ether, he could summon them at will. Their beauty would put an end to this eccentric episode in his life.

The hush of the library grated his nerves. This would be the last time he searched the glowing globe for the incubus. Gabriel pinpointed him in Los Angeles, sunny in the aftermath of floods. Jack had found some shallow Hollywood type to keep him fed and pay his bills, but he seemed listless and sad.

“He displeased the lilītu,” Baptiste said, appearing at Gabriel’s side. “Rumor has it they punished him severely.”

“That explains the misery.”

“Does it?” Baptiste asked shrewdly.

Gabriel glowered, his wings expanding in threat. “I’m not letting you muddle my conviction on this.”

“What would Jesse say?”

“Jesse isn’t here anymore.”

“ _I_ know what Jesse would say. Or to be more specific, what he said.”

“You’ve spoken to him?”

“Let’s say our paths crossed. Apparently, the lilītu are very disappointed that Jack failed to make you fall.”

Anger burned along Gabriel’s veins. He did _not_ like being played and he was _done_ being humiliated. Fury buzzed in his ears and drowned out Baptiste’s voice.

“Akanj, wait!”

But Gabriel had already stepped into the ether and dropped through the cloudbank. He soared above thick snakes of traffic and ugly houses, landing in an opulent neighborhood that put Versailles to shame. The house highest on the hill had an airy bedroom with an enormous wrought iron bed. It opened onto a sprawling patio and a pool that glittered cyan amidst grass that was too green.

“Aw, babycheeks, I just want you wearing nothing but a swimsuit all day,” Jack’s patron crooned.

Tension stiffened Jack’s broad shoulders as he sensed Gabriel’s presence. However, the incubus preened and let the leathery Hollywood executive peel off his shirt, leaving him in a pair of tight black swim trunks.

“Gonna get you that screentest soon.” The executive grabbed a handful of Jack’s ass. “Just gotta find the right part for you.”

“I’d say you’ve already got the right part for me,” Jack purred, trailing a finger down to the man’s belt.

“Haha! Classic! Stay put, hot stuff. Daddy’s gotta go work.”

Gabriel was tempted to shoot his empty head off his shoulders. Jack managed to keep his kittenish demeanor until the man finger-gunned his way out the front door.

Jack sighed into the quiet, then turned to face Gabriel.

It was a rare creature that didn’t quail in front of an armed Archangel blazing bright with righteous anger.

“Drop the glamor.” Gabriel ordered. “Let’s see you for what you are.”

Jack hesitated. “I’d rather you remember me like this.”

“I won’t remember you at all. Drop it.”

After a long moment, Jack did.

Gabriel’s stomach lurched. Two scars marred the demon’s handsome face. One sliced from his forehead to the middle of his cheek. The other crossed the line of his mouth. Other marks peppered Jack’s muscular arms and torso, dark pink shadows on his pale skin.

“That your punishment for failing to make me fall?”

Jack tilted his chin up. “Yes.”

Gabriel let the shotguns dissolve into the ether and folded his arms.

“So. You were assigned to me, ordered to tempt me.”

“Yes.”

“From the beginning?”

“No.” Jack made a fist and released it. “But what difference does it make? One of the lilītu approached me. Moira. She said they’d been watching me – us – for a long time. They were…excited at the progress I’d made with you and were looking forward to the day I tempted you into falling.”

“They had a lot of faith in you.”

“I have a good track record of coaxing self-proclaimed heterosexual saints into admitting what’s actually running through their minds.”

“And you’re smart. You knew typical incubus seduction techniques wouldn’t work, so you created this charade of a ridiculously improbable demon with a conscience.”

Jack shrugged, tired.

And Gabriel realized what he’d just said. His heart rose to his throat.

“You knew typical seduction techniques wouldn’t work,” he repeated, “and that’s why you resorted to them in Tokyo. You were driving me away.”

Jack’s startled gaze flew to his. Something heartbreaking flickered in his eyes. The gratitude of being understood; the grief of being understood too late.

Gabriel’s cohorts in Heaven would accuse it of being all a ruse to lure Gabriel in. But if that was the case, the ruse had been working, and there would have been no point in ruining centuries of careful character building with a crass bout of flirtation.

The fury and humiliation that had dogged Gabriel for two decades dissipated like a fog to reveal the Jack that Gabriel had come to know over the millennia. The thoughtful, brave, lonely, gorgeous, infuriating anomaly.

“You need to go,” Jack said, tail curling and uncurling with worry. “You’re riding an edge. You’re going to get yourself into a situation you can’t get out of.”

Gabriel smirked. “You know I don’t mind brawling with any demon that tries to start shit.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t know what the lilītu are capable of.”

“Well, it’s very cute of you to worry about me but I have everything under control—”

Jack grabbed Gabriel’s chestpiece and hauled him close.

Though the angel’s wings flared in surprise, he didn’t resist. Which said everything. Which said too much. Jack glanced at Gabriel’s lips and his own parted, yearning for their softness. Jack wanted him so desperately that an ache roosted in his ribcage. And it would take _nothing_. He wouldn’t even need to use his thrall.

It was that thought – that Gabriel would give into him not because of any deception but because Gabriel actually liked him – that reined in the desire blazing in Jack’s gut.

Gabriel swallowed, mesmerized by Jack’s sudden nearness, his mind a blank that forgot it shouldn’t be blank.

“Gabriel.” Jack’s thumb ran over the angel’s collarbone. “Look at me.”

Gabriel did. Sunlight in seawater. Jack’s deep blue eyes were unmistakably beginning to glow.

Gabriel’s heart stumbled in his chest at what that implied. But his defenses were strong and unbroken. No... He realized with a shock. There was a single, lethal crack.

“Your thrall—”

“Isn’t activated.” Jack released him. “You need to go.”

Gabriel thought about the closed gates to Heaven, the key to unlocking them...and knew he’d have to leave them locked. His gaze left the earnest eyes to trace the scar slashed across Jack’s face, the column of his throat, the full pecs.

 _He looks like a ripe peach,_ Gabriel thought. Hesitating for a fraction of a second, he reached out and brushed his fingertips over Jack’s bare chest. The demon’s skin was burning under his touch, alive and in love with life. Gabriel felt like a creature raised in a kingdom of ice suddenly meeting a fire.

Jack steeled his jaw and retreated.

The loss of contact left Gabriel hollow and freezing. It was…unbearable. He dragged Jack close again and his hands traveled over the ridges and scars of Jack’s abdomen to take hold of his waist. He could feel Jack’s pulse pick up, could see the heat rising beneath his skin – a blush, not a thrall.

Jack wet his lips, his retreat faltering. “You shouldn’t be…”

Gabriel’s touch stroked upwards, over Jack’s heart, to brush Jack’s cheek in a way that made the incubus lose his breath. He watched Gabriel, half in terror and half in blistering hope. Gabriel leaned in, his thumb sweeping a crescent moon across Jack’s cheek.

Their lips grazed with the gentle heat of sunshine.

Jack pulled back, his face still cradled in Gabriel’s hand, blush searing across his skin. “What are you doing?”

“What I want,” Gabriel breathed, catching Jack’s mouth again.

The feather light contact grew heavier. With a rushed exhale, Jack opened into Gabriel’s insistence, sank into him, blending the wet heat of their mouths. He had the vague thought that this should hurt — an angel’s touch was acid, everyone said — but he was being rocketed into a high he’d never experienced before. Sky high. Heaven high. Jack could barely catch his breath. Gabriel’s desire was unfiltered, the lust as pure and clean and expansive as a sea of scalding water. But there was that something else hooking Jack in, something silkier and deeper, that he wasn’t sure he could name.

And then it was gone.

Gabriel walked out of the house. Strode across the patio, stopped at the edge of the pool. Took several deep breaths. Turned. And walked straight back inside.

A husky whimper caught in Jack’s throat as Gabriel kissed him again.

The demon’s knees went weak and his tail whipped around Gabriel’s thigh. Rough hands smoothed up the sides of Jack’s neck. A tongue curled around his own. Jack wrapped his arms around Gabriel, his fingers meeting the root of feathered wings and his groin meeting hardness.

Jack tried one more time. Swallowing down the thrall straining at his cells, he broke the kiss but couldn’t convince his body to disentangle itself.

“—shouldn’t,” he panted. “My instincts will— I won’t be able to stop.”

The tip of Gabriel’s nose trailed over Jack’s. Blunt nails dragged over the nape of his neck. The desperate thud of his heart bounded into the archangel’s hold on his body.

Gabriel’s lips were silk against his. “So, don’t stop.”

Jack felt his eyes glow hot. The thrall spilled from his skin and Gabriel’s natural defenses melted like butter. Jack surged back into the kiss, greedy, groaning. He slid a thigh between Gabriel’s and walked him backwards towards the bed, the dance of pressure tantalizing.

Gabriel felt full of light, fluffy clouds, ephemeral grasps on electricity that crackled and escaped and scorched his insides. He wanted to hold Jack still and grind into that feeling until it decimated him. His wings twitched and shook, automatically slipping into the ether as he laid back on the sheets.

His skin sang wherever Jack touched it. He needed his clothes off, needed Jack to touch him more, touch him everywhere. The incubus moaned praises into the bared shoulders, the chest divot, the sensitive ribcage, the belly quivering and tight with desire, the exquisite dips of hipbones.

Jack felt delirious, his vision trembling. The blinding high of kissing Gabriel was outshined by having the angel naked and arching beneath him, cock heavy, pearls of pre-cum at the tip, legs parting, hands clinging to whatever part of Jack was closest.

Gabriel’s hips lifted, following the blaze of Jack’s mouth on him, the slick heat surrounding him. The lubricated finger nudging at his entrance was terrifying, that deep exhilarating terror of knowing something you could live for was about to become yours.

It was a slow, sweet unravelling. Though drunk and rock hard from Gabriel’s lust, Jack opened him up with unthinkable care and patience. Hurt little whines caught in Gabriel’s throat as the stretch shifted from being uncomfortable to tolerable to suddenly breathtakingly heartstoppingly necessary. Between one beat and the next, it went from _too much too much too much_ to _not enough not enough NOT ENOUGH_.

When fingers raked through blond hair and gripped a sensitive horn, the shock of pleasure made Jack gulp around the girth on his tongue. His own hips ground desperately into the bed. Though his gold eyes were almost black and his mind was in meltdown, Gabriel took note. He dragged the pads of his fingers over both horns and Jack violently shuddered, spine bowing, claws digging into the mattress, the head of his cock dripping sticky.

Gabriel had witnessed Jack dissolve into ecstasy before but had never realized how luscious it would be to be the cause of it. It rivalled the crackling joy of his own pleasure. Three fingers curled inside him and he was begging.

Jack’s hands trembled as he lined himself up with Gabriel’s opening and began to push in. Every inch ratcheted up the temperature inside Gabriel. Jack rocked into him, fully hilted, and Gabriel tossed his head back with a yell. The feel of this kind of connection was…was handing the reins of yourself to another person and being led to a hidden sun inside you, molten gold and overflowing hot. It was the sort of magnificent loss of self, loss of control, loss of restraint that he’d once felt praying.

Jack grit his teeth against the onslaught of sensation almost too perfect to comprehend. Stars filled his vision and his chest, bright and volatile and wonderful. A few slow thrusts was all the patience he could manage before pinning Gabriel’s thigh to the bed and railing into him, his instincts tilting his hips to the angle that would satisfy the angel – his angel – the most. Gabriel keened, eyes wild, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead as Jack destroyed him in the most delicious and welcome way possible.

Jack kissed him and fucked in hard, groaning in a shredded voice as he came, hot pulses inside Gabriel. The feel of being filled, being defiled, of Jack continuing to pound into him even as semen squelched out, snapped Gabriel in half. Pleasure tore him to pieces, rebuilt him, electrocuted him. He made noises he didn’t recognize. His own seed splattered over his chest. His mouth found Jack’s again and again.

Gabriel’s halo unhooked from its invisible perch at some point. While a wrecked demon – his demon – slept in blissful oblivion on his chest, Gabriel stared at the ring of gold with its lifeless text and once more felt an incorrect emotion, this one unforgivable:

Relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GORGEOUS ART BY [TOYDREAMER](https://twitter.com/Toydreamings)!!!!! >―(〃°ω°〃)♡→


	7. [ vii ]

**vii.**

Jack woke to the startling sight of Gabriel’s halo hanging from the bedpost, catching the blinding Los Angeles’ noon sun. He lurched out of Gabriel’s arms.

“ _Shit._ I shouldn’t have—”

Gabriel pulled him back down. “It was my doing. My choice.”

Despite his panic, Jack had never felt so sated. His irises burned like blue flames, warm and bright. His body was singing, poisoned by a rich and terrible joy he couldn’t squash. Naked and rumpled, Gabriel was glorious. As he stretched his arms overhead, his wings extended, beautiful and broad, pure white tipped in gold. Caught in their shadow, Jack felt every bit the scarred, corrupt creature he was.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Going to drive me away again?”

Jack shook his head with a sad smile. “I wish I was strong enough to. Wouldn’t do you much good now though.”

Gabriel sighed and looked out the open patio doors. “We probably should part ways, honestly. Heaven will be coming for me.”

“Like they won’t be coming after me?”

“No reason to make it easy for them.”

“I’m not abandoning you, not when I’m the one responsible for ruining—”

With a scowl, Gabriel snagged Jack’s chin and turned him so they were face to face. “What do I have to do to get it through your skull that this was my choice?”

The sudden proximity painted Jack’s cheeks a delicious shade of pink. Black started to encroach on the bioluminescent blue.

“That’s a start,” he said, aiming for wry but sounding breathy.

Gabriel let his lips drag over Jack’s. “This the only language you speak?”

“It’s the one I’m fluent in.”

Desire bloomed vibrant and insistent inside Gabriel.

“I can work with that.”

He crushed their mouths together, his hand sliding to Jack’s nape in a possessive grip. Jack melted into the hold, sinking into his lap so their dicks brushed.

Pooling low in Gabriel’s belly was a need that wasn’t entirely new to him. An itch to control. A craving to _take_. He could have blamed it on the thrall pheromones, but none unfurled from the demon’s skin. The source of this animalistic need came from inside Gabriel himself, in chorus with the mad glee of bloody victories.

Jack’s taunt that Gabriel would be tempted to best him on his turf hadn’t been wrong. Gabriel’s gaze raked over the handsome, muscular creature in his grasp. Giving into Jack had been glorious – fireworks in his very blood. But making Jack give into him? Gabriel’s lust spiked hot.

Sensing it, Jack shivered against him.

Fingers raked through Jack’s blond hair and curled around a blue horn, slowly dragging backwards to bare the tender column of Jack’s throat. The demon’s mouth opened, breaths unsteady, eyes dark and fixed on Gabriel, waiting for him, waiting to see what Gabriel would do to him.

Gabriel _loved_ it.

He tongued the small hollow below Jack’s Adam’s apple and Jack exhaled a low moan. The sweet soft touch of their dicks turned into a rougher, harder form of contact.

With sure movements, Gabriel repositioned them, getting to his feet, and tugging and shoving at the demon until he could bend Jack over the edge of the giant bed.

Jack groaned shamelessly. A cock ground into his ass, delicious pressure against his balls and taint, and those white wings caged him in – the incongruity of it was melting his mind.

Contrary to the mythology surrounding seraphs, Gabriel had had sex before. The last time was thousands of years ago, before the Court of Heaven was formed and a kingdom of purity created. The memory of the intercourse had long since faded from Gabriel’s consciousness, but his body evidently retained an idea of what to do.

Jack’s tail was pushed aside so a velvety cockhead could nudge at the hole just below. He arched, heart thudding, hands trembling where they clung to the sheets. Anticipation tightened his muscles into steel wire as lube was drizzled over his entrance in a tortuous trickle.

“Everyone warns that an incubus will seduce and fuck you, but that’s not what you want, is it?”

Jack’s thighs clenched at the sultry rumble of Gabriel’s voice. Watching over his shoulder as Gabriel slicked up his dick, Jack felt saturated with his own thrall. With the defined lines of his torso and the glow of sweat, the angel appeared sculpted out of bronze.

“You think I don’t know how often you pretended the guy fucking you was me?”

Jack whined outright as Gabriel pushed in, thick and hot and so rigid. And very slow. Pleasure climbed Jack’s spine vertebra by vertebra. His claws pierced the mattress when Gabriel hilted inside him, their ball sacks flush.

Gabriel could barely breathe. The sensation felt almost unbearably good. Gabriel pulled back, unhurried and teasing, then nudged forward, watching his cock sink back into the demon’s hole. Pleasure raked through his whole body. He indulged himself, savoring the squeeze and slick tight heat. Every thrust was shallower than the last and every retreat was slower, until Jack was swearing his mouth off and babbling pleas for more. His tail curved around Gabriel’s backside, tugging in supplication.

Gabriel grinned and stroked down the taut muscles of Jack’s back, bracketed so nicely by his own white wings.

“Patience is a virtue.”

And it was an amazing, unexpected torment to his demon.

Gabriel had been going slowly for his own sake, to temper himself, to make sure the devastating pleasure didn’t overwhelm him too early, but it was delightful how it made Jack writhe.

Gabriel’s pace picked up. Slightly. Just enough to take the edge off the need howling inside Jack. Gabriel experimented with angles until he found the one that sent jolts through Jack’s entire body, but still his thrusts were excruciatingly gentle.

Jack’s toes curled into the wooden floor and he clung to the bed, face red with frustration, glaring at Gabriel over his shoulder with eyes of blue fire.

“You did challenge me to best you on your own turf.”

Gabriel’s hips slammed forward and Jack yelled, arching as though he’d been electrocuted.

Then the thrusts turned shallow and soft again. Jack squirmed, tears on his bottom lashes, muscles trembling. The needy noises scrambling up his throat were whipping white heat down Gabriel’s spine. For all the times Gabriel had seen Jack lost to sexual pleasure, this was the first time he’d seen him so helpless to it.

It was obscene how well Jack took him, his body clutching at Gabriel as though to keep him there. Gabriel’s smug grin turned openmouthed and his breathing roughened. He could do this forever. He wanted to do this forever. He wanted Jack to beg him for what the demon could freely take from others.

Gabriel wound Jack’s tail around his broad palm and splayed the other hand between his shoulder blades. Bit by bit, his thrusts gathered speed and weight. He returned to the electric angle he’d discovered and was merciless. He pounded in deeper, longer, harder.

Jack was practically sobbing into the sheets, his deep voice shredded by moans, his body jerking forward with the force of each thrust between his legs. Dry orgasms crackled like embers, a barrage of heat that grew into a blaze. His mind was a fizzling blank, thoughts dissolving before they formed, his whole being reverberating with the reality that an archangel was fucking him. And fucking him like Jack belonged to him.

Jack had never felt so out of control of his own pleasure. He didn’t even have a finger on the reins. This might have been the first time in his entire life that his climax blindsided him. He howled as the pleasure erupted inside him, volatile and fierce. His dick pulsed out semen, painting his thighs and dripping to the floor. His claws destroyed the mattress.

Gabriel fucked him straight through it, dragging out the lightning until the ecstasy fried Jack’s nerve endings.

The sight of the incubus weak and twitching and brainless beneath him, reduced to a puddle because of him, was all Gabriel needed in order to finish. The mad glee of victory spiced his pleasure. He snarled and dug his fingers into Jack’s hips as he slammed in and pumped his release deep inside the demon.

Floating in his delirious haze, Jack had never felt so thoroughly desired, inside and out, before and during and after a thrall, with glamor and without, for his words and his body and his emotions. His heart tightened as Gabriel planted kisses up his spine and over his shoulder blades. The angel was still inside him, sloppy wet and softening. Jack craned around to catch Gabriel’s mouth with his own.

Gabriel eased out so Jack could turn over and Gabriel could properly sink into the kiss, both of them sheltered by the fold of Gabriel’s wings. Knuckles tenderly brushed over Jack’s cheek. When Jack cracked his eyes open, he found Gabriel smiling at him.

That was the awful thing, the part of the story no one believed: Gabriel didn’t fall from Heaven for indulging in lust and fucking Jack stupid.

He was expelled because he fell in love.


	8. [ viii ]

**viii.**

They hid. They ran. They sought shelter from their few friends but left quickly, unable to bear dragging Baptiste or Jesse into danger. They cashed in favors. They bribed or bargained with acquaintances. But eventually their luck began to run out. Heaven left hard scars on them. Gabriel got angelic blood on his hands. Jack seduced whoever he had to to get them a few hours of safety.

One night, one of the lilītu emerged from the shadows to offer them anonymity. For a price. A cruel price. Jack begged Gabriel not to take the deal, but Gabriel insisted they had no choice if they wanted to survive, if they wanted to stay together.

Moira’s vile deal freed them from the hounds of Heaven and Hell that had pursued them for years, but Jack found no respite in the peace. In the dusty quiet of a Route 66 motel room, he nursed Gabriel’s scorched back. In the ether, his wings flared and folded, no longer white quills tipped in gold but wisps of black smoke clinging to equally black bone. Gabriel had allowed the demonic lilītu to leach the Heavenly essence from his feathers, granting her the blasphemous ability to heal. In exchange, she distorted his and Jack’s auras, erasing them from Heaven’s map.

That was when it fully hit Jack what he’d done. That it couldn’t be reversed. That he’d knocked a member of God’s own court out of the sky.

The desert sun lay like a burning veil over the room, the shadows deep and accusatory, overflowing with doubts Jack couldn’t dismiss. Gabriel had dismantled himself to pieces for a chance to stay with him. And Jack just couldn’t be worthy of that sickening amount of sacrifice. It was impossible. This thrall-free affair was bone-rattlingly new and overwhelming for him. This wasn’t the kind of desire that could be switched off. Love was an unpredictable fuel. It could take you to the moon. It could sputter out. And a demon’s love seemed like such a small, trivial thing next to the infinite acres of arable land in an angel’s heart.

Could he even love at all? On darker days, Jack suspected he couldn’t. In his relationship with Vincent, their instincts had been inseparable from the romance. What Jack had called love might have been merely a mutually beneficial arrangement for two incubi to feed off each other, an arrangement Jack had always had an upper hand in, since as a half-blood Vincent had no thrall. And yet, Jack hadn’t bothered to use his influence to convince Vincent to stay, so what did that say about Jack’s supposed love?

But Gabriel smiled at him and kissed him, and although Jack hated himself, he never once resisted kissing back.

They lived in Dubai, Istanbul, Moscow. They followed the incubus lifestyle of playing human, glamored and hidden in plain sight, and moved whenever the people around them got too interested. It was harder these days to appear and disappear. Cameras and computers were everywhere. Identities were fastidiously recorded and checked. They got by on documents that Jack elicited from forgers.

His self-doubts drove a bitter distance between them at times. Gabriel did not see the point of regrets or endless speculation about whether he’d be better off if they’d never met. While Jack struggled to feel worthy, Gabriel grew obsessive and spiteful towards other angels, whom he viewed as hypocrites.

Instead of listening to Jack’s urging to stay hidden, he decided to use his lilītu-gifted anonymity to go hunting. Unlike his halo, which fell in one go, his moral code frayed like a blanket unraveling thread by thread. There was little these days to temper his thirst for a bloody fight. The only thing he cared about was Jack’s safety.

Jack could do nothing but watch as the angel he ruined gave into his rage and unleashed it upon Heaven. Gabriel swore he was doing it for them both, to punish the system that rejected them, but he refused to take Jack along on these sprees or even say where he was going. In retaliation, Jack rarely stayed where Gabriel left him.

The tension built, twig by twig, until it erupted in an all-consuming blaze. Accusations burned up their throats like so much smoke. Gabriel had stalked out in fury, intent on killing something, and Jack was gone before he returned.

Eight years later, Jack was back in Asia, in a penthouse apartment in Bangkok paid for with his own money. Eight years later, Gabriel was sprawled on the plush couch while Jack prowled around the living room in irritation. Eight years later and Jack still wasn’t sure what would happen next.

The fight that flung them out of each other’s orbit was threatening to consume them again.

“You only liked me before you corrupted me,” Gabriel argued in a low voice. “Not exactly fair.”

“That’s not true,” Jack shot back. “I’ve said this before. It’s me I resent, not you. I made you this way.”

“Yes, yes, you wish you’d never touched me.”

“That’s not—”

“You’d give me up to undo everything, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Jack sighed, exasperated. “I don’t want to, obviously, but maybe you’d be happier.”

“You mean maybe _you’d_ be happier,” Gabriel said. He sipped at his bourbon, dark gold eyes clinging to the demon’s every move. “Who would have thought it would be _your_ conscience that keeps fucking us up?”

“And your total lack of one,” Jack spat. “You hunt angels.”

“For us. To keep us safe.”

“For your ego. We’d be just as safe if not more so if you’d just keep a low profile with me.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows and gave a meaningful glance around the enormous apartment with its luxe accoutrements. “Remind me what your Instagram account is again?”

“Remind me how good angels are at using the internet?”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t figure it out at some point.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to kill them all to prevent that from happening.”

“Not all of them. Just the dangerous ones to, again, keep us safe. It’s out of love.” Gabriel tipped the last of the bourbon into his mouth. “So hey, maybe neither of us can love properly.”

“You’re capable of it though.” Jack watched his claws unsheathe and retract in agitation. “I’ve just deluded us both.”

“Jack…”

“How can I claim I love you when I went after you knowing what it would do to you?”

“Come here,” Gabriel rumbled.

The command rolled over Jack like melted chocolate. Though he’d fed recently, the purr in Gabriel’s voice made him ache. Fighting it, he glared in response.

“You can get the same high from any sex demon, you know.”

“If all I wanted was the cheap hit of a thrall, sure.” Gabriel’s eyes glinted. “Jack. Come here.”

“What would Jesse say if he could see you now? The great Archangel Gabriel trying to convince a common incubus to fuck him.”

Gabriel chuckled and stood, placing the glass down before stepping into Jack’s personal space. His desire smoothed over Jack’s senses, as welcoming and impossible to resist as cool water on a hot day.

“I think he’d say that I had a good teacher.”

Gabriel stroked down Jack’s naked waist, fingertips dragging over heated skin. The light contact was intimate and electric, the voltage increasing when Gabriel bowed his head to brush his lips over the demon’s shoulder.

Jack’s body betrayed him first, the lithe tail snaking around Gabriel’s thigh on impulse. His eyes were already pools of hot ink glowing at the edges. His cock thickened. His pulse picked up into a gallop, spurred on by the angel’s potent lust, marbled with impurities now. It had a different type of allure to it. What had once been shining new gold had become elegantly tarnished. And like a magpie, Jack was infinitely, compulsively drawn to it.

Jack’s mind betrayed him next, rationalizing that he was the one who’d done this to Gabriel, ruined him – Jack had no right to deny him anything. Besides, it wasn’t like anybody could blame an incubus for giving into his instincts.

Jack’s heart had betrayed him centuries ago.

Gabriel’s lips were soft on his throat, on his jaw, on his mouth. These were the lips Jack searched for in his dreams. Gabriel still kissed him like he had a soul to be saved, even though the angel’s days of saving souls were long behind him.

“Need this,” Gabriel breathed. “Need you.”

The smoky remains of his wings flared. Whenever he flew, they swept through the sky like storm clouds.

Gabriel relinquished him and strode deeper into the apartment, nudging doors open, on the lookout for potential enemies as much as the bedroom. Finding it, he let his coat fall to the floor before waltzing inside like he was in his own home. He was, in a way. Jack’s bed would always be half his.

Jack lingered in the living room for a few seconds, pretending he wasn’t going to follow.

When he finally did, Gabriel snickered. “You still keep this thing?”

“The halo or the bed?”

They’d stolen the wrought iron bedframe from the Hollywood executive, a vain piece of furniture they’d transferred through the ether, leaving it stored in that non-space when necessary. The gold halo hung lifeless from its usual post. The two items together looked embarrassingly like some sort of shrine to their first time.

Instead of white sheets, however, the mattress was sheathed in Thai silk the color of ripe raspberries.

Jack was hungry. And tired of Gabriel running things. Eyes blazing, he pulled Gabriel into a fierce kiss and felt a curl of satisfaction when the angel stumbled. As fallen as the angel was, it was still addictive as all hell to make him squirm with lust he had no business feeling.

Gabriel’s layers of black leather shifted from armor to giftwrap as Jack’s fingers started undoing buckles. He didn’t activate his thrall, but Gabriel’s skin burned hot and the bulge in his pants swelled. It never failed to fill Jack’s heart with joy how redundant his pheromones were, that Gabriel wanted him regardless.

“You _do_ need this, don’t you?” Jack growled, nipping at Gabriel’s bottom lip.

Gabriel slid fingers into Jack’s hair, a thumb riding the ridge of a horn. “Need _you_.”

Jack had an idea.

“Take me with you when you go hunting.”

“What?” Gabriel blinked at him, trying to follow the change in topic. “Thought you didn’t want me killing angels.”

“I don’t want you putting yourself at risk. If I’m there—”

“You’ll just be at risk too.”

There were a number of reasons why Gabriel didn’t bring him along on his assassination missions, Jack’s safety purportedly being the main one. So, if Jack accompanied him, odds were Gabriel would be less likely to jump shotguns-first into danger, Jack could back him up and talk him down, and Jack wouldn’t have to seethe with worry in his lover’s absence.

“Not happening,” Gabriel said.

“Make friends with your hand then,” the demon said, abruptly releasing him.

“Are you serious? _You’re_ withholding sex to get your way?” Gabriel smirked, eyeballing Jack’s aroused state. “How long do you think you can keep that up?”

Jack shrugged nonchalantly. “I ate recently.”

“I resisted you for centuries. You think I can’t resist you now?”

“Guess we’ll see.”

As Jack climbed onto the bed, he caught sight of Gabriel’s jaw tightening and knew this plan would work.

An incubus lived in lust; arousal was regular and manageable except on very rare occasions. But Gabriel’s body wasn’t designed to sustain or regulate carnal need. His desire was untamed and volatile. It turned him into a gorgeous, needy mess. And it was a vulnerability he trusted no one but Jack to see and sate. Jack didn’t even need his instincts to tell Gabriel hadn’t been touched in nearly a decade.

His back against the pillows, Jack languidly stretched his arms overhead, then took himself in hand. His eyelids closed in pleasure as his cock hardened in the tunnel of his fist. He sensed the shimmering presence of Gabriel’s lust perfuming the ether and knew he was being watched. Gabriel had spent years watching him, not allowing himself to even imagine taking the place of Jack’s lovers, but he couldn’t just objectively observe now, not when he knew what it felt like.

Gabriel was tempted to harangue Jack for taking advantage of him, but he was fully aware that his desperate lust wasn’t due to a demonic seduction technique. He was itching for the sweet silk of Jack’s thrall to make everything dissolve into fuzzy, mindless bliss.

But he really didn’t want his incubus in harm’s way. Gabriel considered the scars that decorated Jack’s body to be his fault. He’d traded his own wings to keep Jack safe and he’d do it again. If Jack insisted on accompanying him, Gabriel would have to play things with much more caution, which was probably why Jack was doing this.

Sucking two fingers into his mouth, Jack arched his hips into his own hand, his skin glowing with that ripe-peach-in-sunlight flush. A raspy groan escaped Jack, the column of his throat bare as he tipped his head back. His wrist twisted as his grip met the crown of his dick.

Gabriel’s resistance fractured into neat pieces.

“Fine. I won’t go hunting angels without you.”

Jack’s eyes cracked open, vibrant blue, and he slowly dragged his own fingers out of his mouth, letting his tongue follow.

“Why are you still wearing clothes then?”

The barest touch of Jack’s thrall on his senses and Gabriel was gone, melting, evaporating. Shivery relief turned into scalding desperation. Pleasure screamed through him for hours. He didn’t even know what day it was when he surfaced from the starry euphoria of the many ways Jack’s body could entwine with his.

When he woke up, he found his head pillowed on Jack’s thigh, the demon’s nails scratching gently over his scalp. The expression on Jack’s face was Gabriel’s least favorite: guilt, regret, fear of being unworthy. As though Gabriel had been perfectly pure to begin with. Expecting another self-detrimental speech, he was surprised when Jack said:

“It glows sometimes.”

Gabriel frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The halo.”

“It’s dead metal. When a halo drops off, it totally desyncs from the angel. I can’t even sense it in the ether anymore.”

Jack shrugged. “The script on it glows a bit, usually when you’re near.”

“You’re probably just seeing things.”

Gabriel swiped the ring off the bedpost and turned it over in his hands, but the dull gold didn’t even flicker. With a huff of disinterest, he tossed it across the mattress.

Jack reached for it and the Heavenly script gleamed like a coin underwater.

Gabriel went dead still and sat up, lips parting in shock. After a moment of disbelief, he grinned. Not the spiteful grin of an archangel leaping into battle or the taunting grin he wore when they argued, but a real smile that he turned on Jack like a spotlight.

“It’s _you_ it’s reacting to. I’ve officially won the argument! You’re never allowed doubt your ability to love ever again, you asshole.”

“What are you talking about?” Jack asked, tail swishing impatiently.

“Do you know what the writing says?”

“No? They don’t exactly teach demons the angelic alphabet.”

Gabriel laughed, a bright and happy sound that Jack hadn’t heard in decades, and cradled the demon’s face in his hands. The adoration in Gabriel’s dark gold eyes held all the warmth of a glorious summer dawn. Then Gabriel recited the ring of text on the halo and Jack’s whole world erupted with sunlight.

“ _For His servant, I remain in place. With divine faith, I am lighter than air. With pure love, I shine._ ”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY ELECTION DAY OH THANK GOD DEMOCRACY ISN'T DEAD <3
> 
> Thank you to all of you lovely awesome people leaving comments and kudos, and for being patient with my hectic upload schedule. I hope this fluffy ending satisfies <3 
> 
> Go be excellent to each other <3


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